The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were the first international event to use pictograms. Katsumi Masaru, art director of the Games, gave the designers two themes a day, such as toilet and telephone. He asked them: Gaikoku kara kita hito ni hitome de wakaru yō ni, shinborikku na mono ni shite kudasai. “Make them symbolic, so that people from abroad understand them at a glance.”
Katsumi also pushed for the copyright to be waived.